Stakes high in 2014 governor battles

MILWAUKEE — Next year, Democrats have a chance to begin to blot out a rare bright spot for Republicans: the nation’s governorships.

For all the GOP’s well-documented problems winning national elections lately, it’s easy to overlook the party’s dominance at the state level that its banner 2010 election produced. Three in five governors are Republicans — and they used that power to push through far-reaching conservative agendas and quite possibly lock down the House of Representatives for a decade through redistricting.

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Thirty-six states have gubernatorial elections on the ballot next year, a list that includes a batch of Republican incumbents up for reelection in key presidential swing states — including Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The results could reverberate for years, shaping both parties’ presidential benches, providing an organizational leg-up in critical 2016 battlegrounds and potentially even playing into the next round of redistricting in 2020.

The leaders of both parties’ gubernatorial arms telegraphed their 2014 strategies during the National Governors Association summer meeting here this past weekend.

Democrats want to nationalize the top races in blue and purple states, linking Republican incumbents with the unpopular GOP brand and accusing them of being “distracted” by divisive social issues. Republicans expect to get a boost from the rebounding economy and the reforms they’ve managed to enact, in contrast to Washington stalemate.

Thirty of the 50 governors are Republicans. But with 10 GOP incumbents on the ballot this year and next in states carried by Barack Obama, Democrats believe they’re poised to roll back some of the GOP’s gubernatorial gains over the past two elections by picking up at least a handful of seats.

But taking out incumbents is a tall order — about four in five governors have been reelected since 1960, according to a University of Virginia tally. And while there were 24 open governorships in 2010, this year all but probably half a dozen of the 36 governors in states with elections will run again.

“If you look at the map, you can say certainly we’re in a much stronger position than we were four years ago,” said Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, who was chairman of the Democratic Governors Association in 2010.

Still, “It’s still going to be rough,” added Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, the outgoing DGA vice-chair, of the overall 2014 climate.

A poor economy helped Republicans get elected in 2010, and a continuing recovery in most states will probably work in their favor next year. Republican Governors Association Chairman Bobby Jindal said Republican incumbents can run as turnaround artists whose states have, for the most part, outperformed the national economy.

“It’s not going to be about party labels or 30-second ads,” the outgoing Louisiana governor and potential 2016 presidential candidate said. “It will be about four years of job growth, four years of balancing the budget, four years of taking on big problems like pension reform, education reform and tax reform.”

The so-called six-year itch helps, too. State elections tend to be countercyclical. Just as the president’s party almost always loses House and Senate seats in the midterm after his reelection, they also lose governorships. After the 2006 midterms, with George W. Bush unpopular, Democrats picked up six governorships controlled by Republicans and wound up with 28.

The electorate in nonpresidential years also tends to be older, whiter and more Republican.

The result of this is that only two Republicans running for reelection really look like dead men walking at this point: Pennsylvania’s Tom Corbett and Maine’s Paul LePage.

Other blue-state Republican incumbents face very tough races but a clearer path to victory.

In Florida, home to perhaps the marquee governor’s race of 2014, incumbent Gov. Rick Scott is expected to spend millions of his fortune to win a second term, touting the Sunshine State’s economic recovery. Former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, running as a Democrat to get his old job back, could face a primary from his new party.

In another top presidential battleground, Ohio Gov. John Kasich got off to a rocky start with a collective-bargaining measure that was invalidated by voters in a special election. But the economy has seen an uptick and Kasich has taken positions, such as accepting money from Obamacare to expand Medicaid, that have helped his standing with independents.

Wisconsin’s Scott Walker is in fairly good shape after surviving the recall. Democrats are still working to recruit a candidate against him. And though Michigan’s Rick Snyder took a dive in the polls after signing a right-to-work law last December, he has distanced himself from the conservative base on issues like Medicaid expansion and gotten a recent boost from his efforts to deal with Detroit’s economic mess.

Iowa’s Terry Branstad, who is also up for reelection next year, said he and other Midwestern governors will contrast how their states have done against the Democrats’ most vulnerable incumbent, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, who might not even survive a primary challenge. Illinois struggles with high debt and taxes, and lackluster job growth.

“Our economies are stronger,” Branstad said. “Democratic governors have done the wrong things. They’ve raised taxes. They failed to make the tough decisions.”